Tehran reacted fiercely Saturday to a ban on its nationals entering the United States by announcing its own ban on US citizens coming to Iran.
"This is an insult to the Iranian people," the Foreign Ministry said in a press release, in reference to the ban ordered by US President Donald Trump on the entry of citizens from several Muslim-majority countries, including Iran.
Tehran would respond by banning US citizens from entering the country, the ministry said, according to news agency IRNA.
The executive order signed by Trump on Friday suspends the US' refugee programme and bars people from several Muslim-majority countries from entering the US for 90 days until new measures are put in place.
The order would exacerbate the divisions between the West and the Islamic world, and therefore play into the hands of terrorists, the Iranian statement said.
The ban is set to affect many Iranians with relatives in the US from travelling to visit them for Persian New Year in March.
Earlier Iranian President Hassan Rouhani criticized another of Trump's key migration policies.
He said that the planned construction of a Mexican border wall runs contrary to modern values of cooperation between countries.
"The times in which people were separated by walls are over," Rouhani said in a statement available on his website.
"We live in a time of globalization ... that has made all nations into neighbours."
Rouhani added that political differences between nations could only be solved through dialogue.
Tehran and Washington have not had a diplomatic relationship for nearly four decades, and Iran is considered one of the United States' foremost geopolitical rivals.
By Farshid Motahari
